Speak
by Tyndall Blue
Summary: Touma breaks a mirror. Shin doesn't believe in bad luck until Touma wakes up one morning with no voice. Post RW timeline. Touma/Shin


A/N: Soooo, the semester is reaching around ¾ done and therefore an ungodly amount of work is being dumped on me. I'm try my best to finish other stuff. Hopefully Tying the Knot and this story will be done by the end of my week. I only seem to be able to write in my physics class, so if I go all three days I'll probably finish!

Speak

It had started with a mirror. It wasn't a particularly important mirror, just something Shin had found at an antique store. While Shin had expected a certain amount of cursing Touma, this time was excessive, followed by 10 minutes of obscene muttering about bad luck that couldn't possibly come at a worse time. Shin laughed at him. Touma asked him if they had a shovel, so he could bury it at a crossroads. Shin kissed him, finding that this was always the easiest way to shut him up. Afterwards he asked him if he could fix the A/C, it was broken again. The ceiling fan did nothing but vaguely stir the soggy air of the kitchen. Touma sighed and said something that Shin was sure was witty to anyone who understood it.

Touma woke, to find he could not speak, shaking Shin awake. His eyes were wide and his thin, rough fingers kept touching his own throat in desperation. Shin called the doctor and the doctors insisted that nothing was wrong. When they got home, Touma emptied the wastebasket of the mirror and pieced it together like a puzzle on the floor. Shin humored him by leaving it there. They went to a different doctor at Shin's insistence the next day. She said there was nothing wrong too.

The first thing he learned to say was 'I love you.' At first, this was simply how he pressed his lips to Shin's cheek. But soon it became a multitude of things. The way his body moved as he poured them tea, the soft exhalation of relief when Shin entered the bedroom, returning late from work. Shin could have even sworn he saw it in the way Touma folded his hands in his lap as he drifted to sleep while watching television. Not allowed to work anymore, television became an escape from books which were an escape from his life. Shin thought it was a very Touma thing to try to escape escapism.

'I hate you' and 'I'm angry' were the next choices. Shin had easier time learning those. He could see it in the sharp white edge of Touma's crooked tooth when he bit his lips in frustration. The flourish of hands and a strangled sound of aggravation and slamming doors did not bother Shin. He sat there calmly, drank is tea, and waited for Touma return.

What always followed was, 'I'm sorry.' Touma sliding into the room, shy and silent with the guiltiest of expressions, would kneel before Shin with the guiltiest of expressions. He takes the tea from Shin's hands, and sets it on the floor, where Shin knows it will grow cold before he can finish it. Apologies from Touma are even more complex without words. Cold fingers wrap around his, equally cold lips pressed to each palm. His hands are rough on Shin's wrists, and Touma's lips follow them there.

Shin closes eyes as the cups of their hands find his cheeks, soft sad sounds coming from his partners lips which barely kiss his temple before ghosting down the straight line of his nose before finding his lips. Shin remembers how Touma once told him that he would write poetry about Shin's lips if he could. Shin laughed and told him that he should instead write an abstract. Touma grinned and said that he hoped there were no other sources to back his findings. Shin, tired of science, kissed him. Shin wasn't sure of how he felt about this quieter Touma.

In the mornings Touma always smelt dark, like coffee as he kissed Shin goodbye. It overwhelmed the light smell of tea that Shin had grown up with. When Touma still worked, the scent was a gentle lingering remnant by the time Shin arose at 8, but now it drifted through the apartment, heavy and sticky with cream and sweetener.

Touma sat at the kitchen table, staring into his mug.

"No call?" Shin murmured, shuffling into the kitchen. The blue bangs swayed slightly with a no. Touma was unable to teach his classes until some method of interpretation was found, or his voice returned. Touma had laughed silently at first, writing that he wanted to sound like Stephen Hawking.

"Are you at least going into the lab?" Another no. Touma's hands parted from the mug, making a motion of wringing necks. Shin understood; it was too difficult communicating to his lab rats. Sighing, Shin moved to rummage through the pantries for breakfast. Half-awake, he accidently knocked over Touma's carefully constructed pyramid of iced-coffee cans. Touma glanced back at the noise.

"Well, if you're not going to work, could you at least pick up while I'm gone?" Shin continued to make breakfast. Touma got up and opened the windows, cleaning the apartment of the smell of coffee.

The changing room at work smelled like baby powder, familiar and comfortable, unlike the wetsuit Shin was struggling into. Two of Shin's interns had called out, so Shin himself was left with the task of cleaning out the tanks. It wasn't unpleasant, just bothersome. He had more important things to do. He squirmed around in the cold, damp suit, trying to get comfortable. He wished they had called him earlier, so he could have brought his personal gear from home. The ones here were always too loose in the waist and tight in the thighs. He glanced down through the slit of glass not obscured by water as he prepped his tanks. The people were milling around already, swarms of school children clustered around their waists. Sliding under he shivered briefly. Touma had been so moody lately, wandered what he could do to make him happy.

Shin pushed open the door to their apartment and was greeted with a tinkling, bell-like sound. Touma still sat at the kitchen table. Shin next recognized the smell of hot pennies, blood. Not bothering to kick off his shoes, he ran in, grabbing Touma's shoulder. Touma jerked back with a wide-eyed gasp. Touma hated nothing more than being surprised. On the table were shredded bits of coffee cans and fragments of mirror, interspersed with Touma's tools. His pliers, hobby knives, tiny drills used in engineering labs that Shin bought him for Christmas. Little scratches laced Touma's hands, untended.

"Touma, the hell are you doing?" Shin asks, gently, surveying the multitude of half-formed animals with mirror eyes and mirror limbs. Tin-form cranes glided across the table with the beat of the fan. Touma cupped his hands and unfolded them, like opening a flower. _Creating_. Shin leaned down and kissed his cheek, hoping that this was just a phase. "Forget the mirror, it was just a coincidence with your voice." Touma shook his head. Shin made dinner. They ate in an abnormal silence among a menagerie of shining animals. Shin cursed the mirror, and would have broken it into a thousand more pieces had Touma not taken the time to neatly file them into hundreds of tiny eyes and wings and limbs.


End file.
